New SalGies

We're excited to welcome our latest Salgo team members who joined us last term. Though the introduction is a tad delayed, as they say, better late than never! This year, we have 3 MBiols, 1 DPhil, and 2 Postdocs, each bringing unique skills. They're contributing to a range of ecosystems studies, from the Arctic to the tropics and marine environments. Let's meet each of our new Salgies and give them a warm welcome to the lab!

Jessie McLean

Hello! I’m Jessie and I’m one of the MBiol students that joined the lab group last October. I’m half American and half Scottish. And I have an American accent despite never living in the United States (international schools!).

Fig. 1 Jessie McLean

My research project is on the population dynamics (an integral projection model of growth and survival) of black spruce in the boreal forest tree community in Alaska. I’m interested in the ways in which forests are being impacted by climate change. For example, the boreal forest is experiencing warmer temperatures, increased forest fires and melting permafrost beneath the trees. I find “remote sensing” data, like those collected from planes, drones and satellites really exciting. In my current research project, I’m using LiDAR (laser scans) and imagery acquired when flying a plane over the my study site (BONA https://www.neonscience.org/field-sites/bona and DEJU https://www.neonscience.org/field-sites/deju) to observe the ways the forest is changing. In the future, I hope to be a part of applying science-based understanding of the natural world to its conservation and protection for future generations.

Maya Lemaire

My name is Maya and I’m an MBiol student who joined the SalGo team in September. I am half Belgian and half English but have lived abroad all my life.

Fig. 2 Maya Lemaire

My research focuses on trends in extreme climate events in the Arctic tundra and their effects on Arctic biota. More specifically, I am analysing ERA5 data to determine whether there is a significant change in the number and frequency of extreme events in the Arctic whilst simultaneously performing a meta-analysis to establish whether extreme events have an impact on Arctic biota. My aim is to determine whether extreme events pose a significant risk to biodiversity in the Arctic. Whilst learning to navigate climate data and its analysis has been a challenge, I hope to continue within academia to develop my understanding of ecological resilience and help drive climate policy towards the protection of our ecosystems. Outside of my degree, I am an avid Water Polo player and have represented Oxford for the past 4 years.

Sarah Bull

Hello everyone! My name is Sarah Bull and I am very excited to be joining the SalGo team for my PhD. 

Fig. 3 Sarah Bull

I grew up in a small village in Devon, surrounded by the beautiful Temperate Rainforest of Dartmoor, before moving to Cambridge to complete my undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences. My research in Cambridge focused primarily on understanding the conservation status of insects, an enormously under-represented group in both literature and conservation efforts. This work cultivated a wider passion to improve understanding of threats towards 'non-charismatic' species, many of which continue to be overlooked in conservation, despite being of great importance for ecosystem functionality and stability. I am particularly interested in developing methodologies to predict the vulnerability of a species to threatening processes under the constraints of highly limited and incomplete species data. 

My PhD work in the SalGo group aims to take a demographic approach to explore how biological traits may be used to project population trends for data deficient species under current and future threats. In particular, my work will investigate the relationship between life history traits and the response of key vital rates to threatening processes, including how these relationships vary with distinct threat types, and with the interaction of multiple threats. 

I am excited to be part of such a creative, interdisciplinary and supportive research group, and I am very much looking forward to my next four years in the SalGo group.

Chrissy Hernandez

My name is Chrissy, and I’ve joined the SalGo team and the Department of Biology as a postdoctoral researcher. I started in October 2023 as part of Rob’s exciting NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant. This project focuses on expanding our understanding of population resilience to more realistic models, realistic disturbance regimes, and from the population to community level. As my first project here at Oxford, I am excited to investigate how the transient dynamics change when we include density dependence into a simple matrix population model.

I'm from the USA, and have spent most of my life in the Northeast US. I grew up primarily in New Jersey. As a teenager, I became passionate about environmental sustainability and water resources, so I studied Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University in New York City. While pursuing my engineering degree, I got really excited about fisheries management and basic science research, especially through a summer research fellowship at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). After university, I worked for a year at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute on ecological modelling, fisheries management, and climate. Then, I returned to WHOI to pursue my PhD in biological oceanography, under the supervision of Joel Llopiz. My thesis research focused on the distribution, growth, and dispersal of larval fishes. During my PhD, I was involved in fieldwork across the world, from the tropical Pacific to the Arctic Ocean and closer to home in the western Atlantic

During my PhD, I got really interested in population dynamics, which led me to a postdoc at Cornell University, working with Steve Ellner (Cornell), Giles Hooker (UPenn), Robin Snyder (Case Western Reserve), and Peter Adler (Utah State). In that position, I developed an exact version of Life Table Response Experiments and worked on a large synthesis study of ‘luck’ in life histories. Much of my work at Cornell used the COM(P)ADRE databases, which led me to my collaborations with Rob and my position at Oxford.

Viki Thuroczy

My name is Viki Thuroczy and I’m very happy to work in the SalGo Team for my Masters Project in 2023-2024.

Fig. 6 Viki Thuroczy

I was born in Budapest, Hungary and moved to Oxford for my undergraduate degree three years ago. Despite coming from a landlocked country, I was always very interested in the marine ecosystem and marine ecology. For my Masters Project I am looking at the differences in life history traits between aquatic and terrestrial species. And investigating how the differences in the environmental factors, mainly stochasticity, between the two realms have driven the development of different life history strategies. Aquatic environments are known to be more positively autocorrelated, resulting in lower frequencies of environmental fluctuations. On the other hand, terrestrial environments are thought to be more negatively autocorrelated, resulting in higher frequencies of fluctuations. My project explores whether these differences in stochasticity resulted in different optimal life history strategies in the two environments.

Fig. 7 Models of coloured environments A, Blue noise (negative temporal autocorrelation B, Red noise (positive temporal autocorrelation) (figure adapted from Ruokolainen et al., 2009)

Next to my Masters, I’m part of the Oxford Deep Blue society committee, which is a society dedicated to organising talks, screenings and similar events in the topic of marine biology. I’m also part of the Women's Blues team for Oxford University Water Polo Club and I’m in the process of getting my BSAC Ocean Diver Certificate.

Sruthi M. Krishna Moorthy

I'm Sruthi M. Krishna Moorthy, hailing from India. Though my roots are Indian, I've spent almost all of my adult life in Belgium. I am a Junior Research Fellow at Pembroke college here at Oxford. I am a computer scientist by training. It was by happy accident that I encountered the field of tropical forest ecology in my career path. I was off to start my career as a software developer, soon after my Bachelor degree in Computer science in India. A few months into my job, I realized that such a routine job was not for me. I started my journey to science with my Masters in Artificial Intelligence (AI) from KULeuven, Belgium. It was during my masters that I became familiar with a wide range of application areas, where my programming skills and AI knowledge can be put to good use. At my first job as a research assistant at University of Liege, I was part of a large interdisciplinary project called'AgricultureIsLife'.The Whole project was to guarantee high quality of sustainable agricultural production, where I developed an efficient machine-vision based navigation system for the robots to navigate autonomously to perform various precision agriculture tasks in the field.While I was looking for other exciting application areas to work on, I found an opportunity to do a PhD with Prof. Hans Verbeeck on his ERC TREECLIMBERS project to study the role of lianas in tropical forest structure using 3D data from terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) systems. My field trips in remote tropical forests have made me passionate about studying forests by exploiting the ever-growing technology. In my current postdoc, I am aiming to expand my work on lianas by upscaling the role of lianas on global forest structure and functioning by using GEDI, a lidar mounted in the international space station. 

Fig. 8 Sruthi M. Krishna Moorthy

以下是中文翻译（Below is translation into Chinese）

我们很高兴欢迎我们在上学期加入的最新Salgo团队成员。虽然介绍有点晚了，但正如他们所说，迟做总比不做好！今年，我们有3名硕士、1名博士和2名博士后，每个人都带来了独特的技能。他们正在为一系列生态系统研究做贡献，从北极到热带以及海洋环境。让我们一起认识一下我们的新成员，热烈欢迎他们加入实验室！

Jessie McLean

你好！我是Jessie，我是去年十月加入实验室的MBiol学生之一。我有一半是美国人，一半是苏格兰人。尽管我从未在美国生活过（国际学校！），但我有美国口音。

我的研究项目是关于阿拉斯加北极林区黑云杉的种群动态（生长和存活的积分投影模型）。我对森林受气候变化影响的方式很感兴趣。例如，北极林区正在经历更暖的温度、增加的森林火灾和树木下融化的冻土。我发现“遥感”数据，如飞机、无人机和卫星收集的数据非常令人兴奋。在我的当前研究项目中，我使用激光雷达（激光扫描）和飞机飞越研究地点时获取的图像（BONA https://www.neonscience.org/field-sites/bona 和 DEJU https://www.neonscience.org/field-sites/deju）来观察森林变化的方式。未来，我希望能参与将对自然界的基于科学的理解应用于其保护和未来世代的工作中。

Maya Lemaire

我的名字是Maya，我是硕士学生，于去年九月加入SalGo团队。我是比利时和英国的混血儿，但一直以来我都在国外生活。

我的研究重点是北极苔原极端气候事件的趋势及其对北极生物群的影响。更具体地说，我正在分析ERA5数据，以确定北极极端事件的数量和频率是否有显著变化，同时进行元分析，以确定极端事件是否对北极生物群产生影响。我的目标是确定极端事件是否对北极生物多样性构成重大风险。虽然学会处理气候数据及其分析对我来说是一个挑战，但我希望能在学术界继续发展对生态韧性的理解，并推动气候政策朝着保护生态系统的方向发展。在我的学业之外，我是一名狂热的水球运动员，并在过去的4年里代表牛津大学参赛。

Sarah Bull

大家好！我叫Sarah，我很高兴加入SalGo团队攻读博士学位。

我在德文郡的一个小村庄长大，四周是美丽的达特穆尔温带雨林，后来搬到剑桥完成本科学位。在剑桥的研究主要集中在了解昆虫的保护状况，这是一群在文献和保护工作中极少被重视的生物。这项工作培养了我对“非魅力物种”面临的威胁进行更深入了解的热情，尽管这些物种在保护方面仍然被忽视，但它们对生态系统功能和稳定性至关重要。我特别感兴趣于开发方法来预测物种在高度有限和不完整的物种数据约束下对威胁过程的脆弱性。

我的博士研究旨在采用人口统计学方法，探讨生物学特征如何用于预测数据不足物种在当前和未来威胁下的种群趋势。具体而言，我的工作将调查生活史特征与关键生存率对威胁过程的响应之间的关系，包括这些关系如何随着不同类型的威胁以及多重威胁的相互作用而变化。

我很高兴能成为这样一个充满创造力、跨学科和支持性的研究团队的一部分，我非常期待在SalGo团队度过的未来四年。

Chrissy Hernandez

我叫Chrissy，我加入了SalGo团队并成为生物学系的博士后研究员。我于2023年10月加入，是罗布领导的令人振奋的NERC推动前沿计划的一部分。该项目旨在扩展我们对种群适应性的理解，使用更现实的模型、更现实的干扰制，并从种群到社群层次。作为我在牛津的第一个项目，我很兴奋地研究在将密度依赖性引入简单的矩阵种群模型时，瞬时动态如何变化。

我来自美国，大部分时间在美国东北度过。我主要在新泽西州长大。在十几岁时，我对环境可持续性和水资源充满热情，因此我在纽约市哥伦比亚大学学习地球与环境工程。在攻读工程学位期间，我对渔业管理和基础科学研究产生浓厚兴趣，尤其是在伍兹霍尔海洋研究所（WHOI）的暑期研究奖学金项目中。大学毕业后，我在缅因湾研究所工作了一年，从事生态模型、渔业管理和气候研究。然后，我返回WHOI攻读生物海洋学博士学位，由Joel Llopiz指导。我的博士研究重点是幼鱼的分布、生长和传播。在博士阶段，我参与了世界各地的野外工作，从热带太平洋到北极洋，以及西大西洋附近。

在博士阶段，我对种群动态产生浓厚兴趣，这导致我在康奈尔大学进行博士后研究，与Steve Ellner（康奈尔大学）、Giles Hooker（宾夕法尼亚大学）、Robin Snyder（西储大学）和Peter Adler（犹他州立大学）合作。在那个职位上，我开发了生命表反应实验的精确版本，并参与了一项关于生活史中“运气”大型综合研究。我在康奈尔的许多工作都使用了COM(P)ADRE数据库，这导致了我与罗布的合作以及在牛津的职位。

Viki Thuroczy

我叫Viki，我非常高兴在2023-2024年为我的硕士项目在SalGo团队工作。

我出生在匈牙利布达佩斯，三年前搬到牛津攻读本科学位。尽管来自一个内陆国家，但我一直对海洋生态系统和海洋生态学很感兴趣。在我的硕士项目中，我研究水生和陆生物种的生活史特征差异，以及两个领域之间的环境因素差异（主要是随机性）如何推动不同的生活史策略的发展。已知水生环境往往具有更强的正自相关性，导致较低频率的环境波动。另一方面，陆地环境被认为具有更强的负自相关性，导致较高频率的波动。我的项目探讨这些随机性差异是否导致了两个环境中不同的最佳生活史策略。

除了我的硕士项目外，我还是牛津Deep Blue学会委员会的一员，该学会致力于组织关于海洋生物学的演讲、放映和类似活动。我还是牛津大学水球俱乐部女子蓝队的一员，正在努力获得BSAC Ocean Diver证书。

Sruthi M. Krishna Moorthy

我是Sruthi，来自印度。尽管我的根源是印度，但我几乎整个成年生活都在比利时度过。我目前在牛津的彭布罗克学院担任初级研究员，我的专业是计算机科学。偶然的机会让我走上了热带森林生态学的职业道路。在获得印度计算机科学学士学位后，我原本是要开始我的软件开发职业生涯的。在工作的几个月后，我意识到这样一份例行工作并不适合我。我开始了我的科学之旅，通过在比利时鲁汶天主教大学（KULeuven）攻读人工智能（AI）硕士学位。在我的硕士期间，我熟悉了许多应用领域，其中我的编程技能和人工智能知识能够得到充分利用。在列日大学的第一份研究助理工作中，我参与了一个名为"AgricultureIsLife"的大型跨学科项目。整个项目的目标是保证可持续农业生产的高质量，我为机器人开发了一套高效的基于机器视觉的导航系统，使其能够自主导航执行各种精密农业任务。当我寻找其他令人兴奋的应用领域时，我发现了与汉斯·弗比克教授合作攻读博士学位的机会，研究使用陆地激光扫描（TLS）系统的3D数据研究藤蔓植物在热带森林结构中的作用，这是ERC TREECLIMBERS项目的一部分。我在偏远热带森林进行的实地考察使我对通过不断发展的技术来研究森林充满激情。在我目前的博士后研究中，我致力于通过使用安装在国际空间站上的GEDI（激光雷达）来扩大我在全球森林结构和功能中藤蔓植物作用的研究。

以下是一些图片标题的翻译。

图5（Fig. 5） 这张照片展示了一只蓝鳍金枪鱼幼鱼轻盈地停在我的指尖上。这只蓝鳍金枪鱼幼鱼大约是7到10天左右。我在2017年7月的NOAAS Henry Bigelow海洋考察活动中收集到这只幼鱼。

图7（Fig. 7）  着色环境模型A，蓝噪声（负时序自相关性）B，红噪声（正时序自相关性）（图改编自Ruokolainen等人，2009年）